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xAI finalises US$40 billion funding from tech buddies
Securing a $20 billion Series E funding round earlier today has pushed Elon Musk’s xAI beyond the US$40 billion total capital threshold, joining the likes of Sam Altman's OpenAI. Market valuations for the venture now sit at about $230 billion, establishing the firm as a primary challenger within the foundational model landscape. Internal roadmaps for Grok 5 point toward a first quarter 2026 release, featuring massive parameter scaling and enhanced reasoning tools designed for corporate workflows. Investment interest in this latest tranche was spearheaded by Nvidia and Cisco, alongside institutional heavyweights like Valor Equity Partners and the Qatar Investment Authority. Aggregate funding levels have climbed sharply over the past eighteen months as the organization moves from a research-intensive phase into broad commercialization. Strategic expansion plans detailed on the official xAI blog focus heavily on the Memphis-based Colossus supercomputing cluster. Engineering teams are currently scaling this site to support a hardware footprint exceeding one million graphics processing units, intended to train the next-generation Grok 5 architecture. Recent property acquisitions near the Tennessee facility, includi
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Foxconn reports record Q4 revenue on back of AI growth
Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) has outpaced estimates and hit a record Q4 revenue of T$2.6028 trillion (approximately £65.4 billion), a 22% year-on-year increase. According to the firm’s official December fiscal disclosure, this performance marks the highest single-quarter turnover in the company’s history. These figures outpaced the LSEG SmartEstimate of T$2.418 trillion, reflecting a pivot in the organisation’s business model from consumer devices toward AI infrastructure. FY25 cumulative sales passed the T$8 trillion mark for the first time - a staggering 18% YoY jump. The primary driver is its strengthening integration with Nvidia, for whom Foxconn serves as a key Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) for AI server arrays. And while the company’s traditional revenue sources - such as handset assembly for Apple - remained steady despite currency volatility, the ‘Cloud and Networking’ vertical saw strong momentum. The cloud division now represents a significant portion of the total balance sheet, aided by the steady ramp-up in high-performance computing shipments to meet global data centre requirements. It's all part of Foxconn's diversification strategy beyond the traditi
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Softbank's cash injection fuels OpenAI arms race
Japan-based global investment giant SoftBank has closed out 2025 with a 'definitive strike' - in the context of the global artificial intelligence arms race - finalising its US$40 billion cash investment into OpenAI. The transaction, confirmed on New Year’s Eve, reportedly pushes OpenAI’s valuation toward the $500 billion mark and signals a pivot for SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son from portfolio caution back to aggressive, high-stakes investments. By injecting pure liquidity rather than cloud credits, the deal grants OpenAI the "dry powder" required to decouple from existing infrastructure dependencies and build its own sovereign compute capabilities. "AI is a defining force shaping humanity's future," SoftBank chair and chief executive Masayoshi Son said. “Our expanded partnership with OpenAI accelerates our shared vision to unlock its full potential.”Silicon power playSoftBank’s move places it at the centre of this new "Super-Fund" era, where the ability to finance entire energy grids and semiconductor fabrication plants is a prerequisite for competitiveness. The primary catalyst for the capex is the escalating cost of specialised hardware and the physical infrastructure required to sustain "human-level" AI models
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Boeing, Pentagon in US$8.6bn F15 deal to supply Israel
Boeing’s defence division has ended the year on a significant high note after securing a mammoth US$8.6 billion contract from the United States Pentagon. Handled as a Foreign Military Sales requirement, the agreement covers the design, production, and delivery of 25 new fighter jets under the F-15 Israel acquisition program. These aircraft, designated as the F-15IA, represent a tailored version of the F-15EX Eagle II platform and are engineered to meet specific regional requirements. Beyond the delivery of new jets, the deal includes modification kits for Israel’s existing F-15 fleet to ensure technological consistency across the entire squadron. Israeli officials also retain a strategic option to purchase another 25 aircraft in the future, which would effectively double the scope of the current order. Engineering and production work will be concentrated at Boeing’s St. Louis facilities, providing the site with nearly a decade of operational visibility. Initial funding worth $840 million was released immediately to kickstart long-lead production and ensure the project remains on its 2035 schedule.Industrial reinforcementWhile the F-15IA remains a primary focus, the Pentagon simultaneously confirmed a $4.2 billion
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AI 2025: The 10 tech deals of Q4 that mattered
As the year draws to a close, the market is no longer asking if AI will work - but who possesses the dry powder to build the "Stargate" required to power it? With global AI infrastructure boom spending already surpassing the US$1 trillion milestone this year alone, Silicon Valley, governments and other enterprises across the globe are throwing the proverbial bus at winning, or at least being a part of, this decade's enormous technological change. From US$300 billion data centre projects to the "de-Nvidification" of custom silicon, here are the top 10 most significant artificial intelligence deals from the last 90 days that matter.1. The $300 billion “Stargate”September's quantification of the landmark $300 billion partnership between Oracle and OpenAI stands as the most ambitious infrastructure commitment in the history of the digital age. The massive Oracle and OpenAI partnership effectively turns Oracle into a primary cloud heavyweight while providing OpenAI with the unprecedented scale required for its next-generation models. Spanning five years, the agreement aims to supply vast amounts of computing power through 30 gigawatts of capacity, representing a shift toward utility-scale tech operations as Oracle follows its

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US space stocks skyrocket on Trump executive order
United States' based space equities have gone on a parabolic trajectory following the ratification of a new executive order by President Trump designed to lock in American hegemony above the planet. The "Ensuring American Space Superiority" directive, signed on 18 December, has acted as hypergolic fuel for the commercial sector, triggering a vertical re-rating for pure-play contenders including Firefly Aerospace (FLY), Intuitive Machines (LUNR), and Rocket Lab (RKLB). Institutional capital is aggressively rotating into the sector, betting that the policy’s explicit mandate for private-sector heavy lift and defence capabilities will crystallise into billions in National Security Space (NSS) contract vehicles.The 'Carrington' contingencyDespite the bullish price action, industry heavyweights and government regulators are increasingly vocal about the existential threat posed by extreme space weather events. A newly declassified report from the Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation (SWORM) interagency working group has flagged a "high probability" window for a Carrington-class geomagnetic storm - a G5-level event capable of crippling unhardened orbital infrastructure. The concern is that a direct hit from a ma
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Trump Media in US$6bn reverse merger with TAE
Trump Media & Technology Group has (TMTG) has announced it will combine with fusion power developer TAE Technologies in an all-stock reverse merger deal worth a whopping US$6 billion. Acquiring TAE reconfigures the parent company of Trump's Truth Social platform from a pure-play media outfit into a diversified hard-tech holding entity seeking commercial fusion energy. Under agreed terms, TMTG and TAE shareholders will retain ~50% equity each on a fully diluted basis, creating a balanced ownership structure for the new combined entity. TMTG allocated a $200 million liquidity injection at signing, with a further $100 million contingent upon filing the S-4 registration for public listing. Structurally, this transaction operates effectively as a reverse merger for TAE, a California-based firm that has expended over $1.3 billion in venture backing from institutional heavyweights like Google, Chevron, and Goldman Sachs since 1998.A fusion bet on fusionFusion power is touted to bridge over the perceived “AI energy cliff”- the projected deficit in baseload power required for hyperscale data centres that intermittent renewables cannot reliably service 24/7. Computing power demands are rapidly outpacing grid capacity - and th
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Brokers place big bets on Apple’s AI catch-up in FY26
While Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) recently offloaded another multi-billion dollar slice of its once-iconic stake in Apple (Nasdaq: APPL), a growing number of institutional investors are making strong bets on the global technology giant being one of the Nasdaq-100 Index’s outperformers in FY26. One of the most heavily weighted stocks on the tech-heavy exchange – around 12.3% - Apple has a market cap of US$4 trillion and since early May the share price has jumped 24% to US$271.84. Interestingly, Berkshire Hathaway is using the proceeds from its recent Apple selldown to place bigger bets on AI and has and started a new position in Alphabet. Like a lot of institutional investors, Berkshire Hathaway has pointed the finger at Apple for being left behind in the global race for AI dominance. However, while it might be late to join the party, Morgan Stanley foresees Apple moving from AI laggard AI leader in 2026. In a bullish move for Apple investors, the broker’s analyst Erik Woodring on Wednesday, reiterated an overweight rating on the stock while hiking the price target from US$305 to US$315. With the stock now regarded as a high-conviction idea in the broker’s 2026 IT hardware outlook, it’s clear
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iRobot hoovered up by Chinese partner in bankruptcy
After 35 years, it's the end of the road for iRobot and its world-famous Roomba robot vacuum, after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday in Delaware, with ownership to be hoovered up by its main manufacturer - China-based Picea. The Massachusetts-based company has struck a restructuring deal to be acquired by Picea which essentially swaps ownership for cancelling a massive pile of debt. Under this pre-packaged plan, Picea will snap up 100% of the equity and wipe out about US$264 million in IOUs, with the strategic transaction to drive growth expected to wrap up by next February. For regular shareholders, the news is unfortunately bleak, as they aren't expected to recover any money when the company goes private and eventually delists from the Nasdaq. On the bright side, if you own a Roomba, CEO Gary Cohen insists it is business as usual - meaning warranties and the app will keep working while they stabilise the company's financial position. This financial crash comes after a brutal stretch that started when Amazon walked away from a $1.7 billion buyout in early 2024 because regulators in the EU and US blocked the move. Since then, iRobot has been squeezed by cheaper rivals like Roborock